Night Sisters. John Pritchard

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СКАЧАТЬ breath. And even as I hesitated, I saw Mike appear at the far end of the corridor, pushing past one of the stunned ward nurses, and come racing towards us. There was surely no need to keep on running; we could corner her here; restrain her. But McCain had already struggled to her knees, her knife still glinting through the gloom, and now she lifted her head and looked at me, and bared her teeth in a vixen grin.

      We kept on running.

      Through the next set of doors, and the next, and we were back in the Medical Unit reception area. That left us with a choice of the main stairway up or down. For a moment I could think of nothing but Mike back there, maybe tackling that mad bitch, struggling to disarm her – and then I saw that one of the lifts was open wide and waiting.

      Someone must have just used it – maybe a nurse trailing back from the fag-end of Break, or returning from delivering specimens to the lab, or whatever. It didn’t matter. We ran for it, as behind us we heard the doors of Radcliffe Ward burst open.

      Over the threshold, past the photoelectric beam, and I jabbed the button, any button, and held it down.

      Nothing happened, of course.

      Wrong button, I realized after a stupefied pause, you’re pressing for this floor, shit. And I put my thumb to the ground-floor button with all my weight behind it as Carol McCain shoved her way through the last set of doors into the reception area, and saw us.

      The door began to close, so painfully slowly that for a horrible moment I thought it would fail to connect properly and automatically reopen. And McCain came running anyway, aiming to get her foot into the narrowing gap and block the beam. I shrank back against the far wall, pulling Angela with me, and the last I saw of McCain was a glimpse of her frustrated snarl as the door closed in her face.

      Stillness for a second. Then the lift lurched, and started to descend.

      I let my breath out in a gasp that left me drained. My legs were suddenly kitten-weak, and I had to slump back against the wall to save my balance. Beside me, Angela James was weeping silently, the tears rolling down her hollow cheeks; but I sensed she still had all her wits about her – primed with adrenaline, and ready to run again.

      But who the hell was she was running from?

      I’d ask her later, to be sure; but right now, as the lift reached ground level, we both had other things to think about. I knew there was no way I could stop the doors opening. If necessary, if she was already waiting down here, I’d punch the button for the top floor and throw myself against her, forcing her back until the doors had closed behind us and Angela was safely on her way. What that might cost me I didn’t pause long enough to consider: I knew my hesitation would be fatal for both of us if I did.

      The lift steadied itself, lined itself up; there was another pause. I thought I couldn’t get any more keyed up – but my stomach still lurched as the door slid smoothly open, and I saw –

      Nobody there.

      Nobody in sight, anyway. I glanced at Angela, and swallowed, and moved slowly forward to peer out.

      The foyer was empty.

      And even as we hesitated, unsure what to do next, I heard footsteps from down the corridor – several people, walking quickly; and voices I recognized.

      They reached the lift area a moment later: Adrian, who was clearly chargehand porter for tonight, and three of his lads – including Danny from our department. His eyes widened as he saw us.

      ‘Rachel – we just got a call from A&E, said you’d gone off chasing some nutter with a knife …’

      Well at least the phones were working again. I nodded urgently. ‘Yeah, some woman got up on to the Med floor, she must still be up there now. Have they called the police?’

      They had. The Duty Nurse Manager as well. All the wards were in the process of being alerted. I nodded again, thankfully, and gestured to Angela, who was keeping close beside me, hugging herself in that outsize dressing-gown.

      ‘This is Angela. The girl she was after. I want to get her sat down and with a cup of tea, can someone come with us?’

      It was Danny who volunteered, and the three of us went back down the corridor towards Casualty; my arm round Angela’s shoulders now, soothing her as the shock began to set in. I reckoned it would be more private round by us, rather than in the canteen or wherever. Part of my mind was still very much on what must be happening upstairs – that woman still loose, still armed and dangerous; and what had happened to Mike? But I realized that right now this girl needed all my attention, so I forced the other thoughts and fears from my mind and concentrated on her. Speaking softly. Guiding her steps.

      A cup of hospital tea. I’d just been looking forward to one when all this had started. Maybe ten minutes ago. Maybe a lifetime.

Seven

      ‘Want to tell me about it?’

      She looked warily up from the mug that steamed in both her hands. ‘About what?’

      ‘Who she is.’

      She glanced down at her drink again, and didn’t answer.

      I didn’t push it. The police were already here, and would be asking their own questions soon enough. I could hear the WPC on the phone in my office, just across from the duty room where we were sitting. One of her male colleagues was hovering in the corridor outside, his handset picking up occasional crackles of conversation on the open channel. More officers were still searching the building; the intruder had not yet been located.

      Mike was sitting in with us: a much-recovered Graham had obligingly sutured the laceration in his side, and decided he didn’t have concussion. He was off sick as of now, of course – but the police would want a statement from him too, and he was nursing a coffee while he waited.

      I caught his eye now, but all he could do was shrug. He’d been lucky, and he knew it. She’d slashed and kicked him brutally as she’d struggled clear: the realization of how close death had come was there to see in the paleness of his face. The two of us had been through some sticky situations together since I’d joined the night shift; I well remembered that time he’d disarmed a bottle-wielding drunk and could still make a joke of it afterwards. I’d never seen him as subdued as he was tonight.

      Death had come close. But McCain had come closer. And, like me, he must have felt her coldness, the icy insanity beneath her calm exterior. I knew that this was what had really unnerved him; knew just how he was feeling.

      And she was still in here with us: somewhere in this warren of echoing corridors and shadow-filled wards. Even with the police in A&E, I didn’t quite feel safe. It’s a big department, after all, divided into half a dozen areas: trolleys, cubicles, theatres … Tonight it was empty – and the bright lights only made it all look emptier, and emphasized its silence.

      I sipped some more coffee. Still warm, but what the hell.

      They questioned Angela first, with me still present at her request. Not that she was about to tell them anything, either: it was all shrugs and monosyllables. From the line the policeman was taking, they obviously thought she was involved in street crime of some description: drugs or prostitution. McCain was clearly acting on behalf of some pusher or pimp – perhaps she was one СКАЧАТЬ